Let’s end the week with a quick 1:48 YouTube video about Plantweb Insight to better analyze and use the data for safe, reliable and compliant operations. Plantweb Insight is enabled by wireless sensors and networks and gives users the knowledge to make effective and timely decisions
The suite of Plantweb Insight applications provide instant access and visibility into plant assets in an intuitive way without the...

Yesterday, in a post, How to Prevent Bearing Failures , we described how PeakVue analytics technology can provide early warning for bearing problems.
In this 6-minute YouTube video, PeakVue Signal Processing Demo , Emerson’s Robert Skeirik describes how these advanced analytics can spot bearing problems much earlier that traditional vibration measurements.
This extra time allows the operations and maintenance teams...

Rotary bearings for industrial machinery reduce to friction between the moving parts. As with other mechanical parts, they wear over time.
In a Plant Services article, 6 steps to preventing bearing failure , Emerson’s Brian Overton shares ways to extend bearing life and avoid unplanned shutdowns.
He opens highlighting their importance.
Without effective bearing motion, a machine shaft can fail, and the machine...

Emerson’s Alex Flick presented Optimizing Power Generation Maintenance Strategies Using Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Analysis at the 2018 Ovation Users’ Group Conference.
Alex opened by sharing a story of a North American generating station. The plant was commissioned in 2002 and producers over 500MW of power. The plant has a couple of gas turbines, a steam turbine and heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs...

At the 2018 Ovation Users’ Group Conference, Emerson’s Jason King and John Reidelbach provided an update on Ovation Machinery Health Monitor and a case study of its application.
Jason opened describing some of the challenges of traditional machinery protection systems. Plants today have more operational issues due to cycling stresses, loss of expertise, and maintenance issues from growing reactive work practices....

Many of us are experiencing digital transformations in our homes in small steps. Devices like Emerson’s Sensi wi-fi thermostat that can be controlled via a smart phone app, digital voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home and Apply Siri, and smart locks to lock down the house are a few examples. These change the way we interact with technology and how we get things done.
Similarly for manufacturers, digital...

Capital project team members are under constant pressure to meet project deadlines and get the manufacturing or production process up and running. But how do they ensure that the capital assets installed will run reliably over time?
In an Efficient Plant article, Data Standards Lead to Project Success , Emerson’s Scott Janzen describes the critical need for early planning to develop and execute a data acquisition...

View the Plantweb Optics mobile application and demonstration by downloading from the App Store or Google Play Manufacturing processes create a huge stream of data during the production process as well as with the assets involved in this process. Effective asset management for reliable operations requires getting the early warning signals among this vast sea of data to right person or people for action.
At the recent...

Manufacturing capital projects have followed a similar path for many decades. The project team designs, executes and commissions the project, provides training for the operations staff, and hands it over to them to run. What is often lacking in this approach is the opportunity to design work practices at the design phase to improve overall reliability over the life of the manufacturing process.
In a Plant Services...

Manufacturing capital projects have followed a similar path for many decades. The project team designs, executes and commissions the project, provides training for the operations staff, and hands it over to them to run. What is often lacking in this approach is the opportunity to design work practices at the design phase to improve overall reliability over the life of the manufacturing process.
In a Plant Services...

Process manufacturers and producers practice many forms of maintenance as part of their efforts toward more reliable operations. These include reactive, preventive, predictive and most recently thanks the advancements in the Industrial Internet of Things technologies—prescriptive maintenance.
In a Plant Engineering article, The path to prescriptive maintenance: Three steps to drive reliability while preparing for...

Process manufacturers and producers practice many forms of maintenance as part of their efforts toward more reliable operations. These include reactive, preventive, predictive and most recently thanks the advancements in the Industrial Internet of Things technologies—prescriptive maintenance.
In a Plant Engineering article, The path to prescriptive maintenance: Three steps to drive reliability while preparing for...

Effective monitoring requires good measurement, effective analytics to help understand the measurement, and clear guidance for action to resolve the issue. For manufacturing and production facilities already instrumented for process control, adding measurements can be difficult due to existing wiring infrastructure.
In an Automation.com article, Apps Simplify Wireless Monitoring , Emerson’s Brian Joe describes how...

One of the promises in taking a human-centered design (HCD) approach to product development is to simplify the user experience. Better yet, when done well, entire tasks can be eliminated. That translates into greater productivity to get things done more quickly.
I mention this because Emerson’s Nicholas Meyer shared an innovation with me in smart device handheld communicators. The latest release of the AMS Trex Device...

Given the costs associated with wired plant instrumentation and wiring infrastructure, most plants have just enough sensors and final control elements to perform basic control and safety system functions. While enough for control and process safety, it is often not enough for reliability, energy efficiency, and uptime.
The Industrial Internet of Things , and more specifically, wireless sensors, open the opportunity...

As the technology and work practices have progressed, so has reliability practices from reactive to preventive to predictive maintenance (PdM).
In a Plant Engineering article, The path to prescriptive maintenance , Emerson’s Will Goetz describes prescriptive maintenance:
…where analytics can show that a piece of equipment is headed for trouble and can prescribe prioritized, pre-determined, expert-driven mitigation...

Let’s end the week with a short video showing the durability of a smart field device communicator. In this 1:47 YouTube video, AMS Trex Durability Tests , the AMS Trex device communicator is given some abuse to demonstrate its ruggedness.
Emerson’s Nicholas Meyer and Stephen Mozia team up to see if the AMS Trex unit can handle being tossed down a set of stairs and still perform (spoiler alert—it does).
Stephen...

Those with smart instrumentation know that installation, configuration and maintenance activities often require the plant technicians to carry multiple tools such as external power supplies or loop simulators in addition to the handheld instrumentation communicator device. Properly functioning instrumentation helps the operations staff and automation system control strategies manage the process more safely, reliably...

Unplanned downtime remains the top issue for most process manufacturers and producers. At the ARC Industry Forum, ARC’s Craig Resnick led a panel, Strategies to Reduce Downtime and Increase Plant KPIs . Emerson’s Will Goetz participated in the panel to discuss the importance of comprehensive reliability program planning and execution. Here was the session description:
This session will discuss manufacturers’ biggest...

A Joint Research Centre (JRC) Scientific and Policy Report, Corrosion‐Related Accidents in Petroleum Refineries , found [emphasis and hyperlink mine]:
Notably, of the 137 major refinery accidents reported by EU countries to the EU’s eMARS [ Major Accident Reporting System ] database since 1984, around 20% indicated corrosion failure as an important contributing factor.
Many other industries including oil &...

Equipment failure is a large part of unplanned downtime, slowdowns and/or loss in quality of the product being produced. Monitoring temperatures, vibration, differential pressures across filters are often performed to identify problems before failure occurs.
Another important set of measurements that can provide early warning are the voltage, current and other electrical parameters on the motors driving equipment...

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